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Merit badge requirements

a. Discuss with your counselor these three aspects of emergency preparedness:

1. Recognition of a potential emergency situation

2. Prevention of an emergency situation

3. Reaction to an emergency situation

Include in your discussion the kinds of questions that are important to ask yourself as you consider each of these.

b. Make a chart that demonstrates your understanding of each of the three aspects of emergency preparedness in requirement 2a (recognition, prevention, and reaction) with regard to 10 of the situations listed below. You must use situations 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5* but may choose any other five for a total of 10 situations. Discuss this chart with your counselor.

1. Home kitchen fire*

2. Home basement/storage room/garage fire*

3. Explosion in the home*

4. Automobile accident*

5. Food-borne disease (food poisoning)*

6. Fire or explosion in a public place

7. Vehicle stalled in the desert

8. Vehicle trapped in a blizzard

9. Flash flooding in town or the country

10. Mountain/backcountry accident

11. Boating accident

12. Gas leak in a building

13. Tornado or hurricane

14. Major flood

15. Nuclear power plant emergency

16. Avalanche (snowslide or rockslide)

17. Violence in a public place

c. Meet with and teach your family how to recognize, prevent, and react to the situations on the chart you created for requirement 2b. Then meet with your counselor and report on your family meeting, discussing their responses.

3. Show how you could safely save a person from the following:

a. Touching a live electric wire.

b. A room with carbon monoxide

c. Clothes on fire.

d. Drowning using nonswimming rescues (including accidents on ice).

4. Show three ways of attracting and communicating with rescue planes/aircraft.

5. With another person, show a good way to move an injured person out of a remote and/or rugged area, conserving the energy of rescuers while ensuring the well-being and protection of the injured person.

6. Do the following:

a. Tell the things a group of Scouts should be prepared to do, the training needed, and the safety precautions they should take for the following emergency services:

1. Crowd and traffic control

2. Messenger service and communication.

3. Collection and distribution services.

4. Group feeding, shelter, and sanitation.

b. Identify the government or community agencies that normally handle and prepare for the emergency services listed under 6a, and explain to your counselor how a group of Scouts could volunteer to help in the event of these types of emergencies.

c. Find out who is your community's disaster/emergency response coordinator and learn what this person does to recognize, prevent and respond to emergency situations in your community. Discuss this information with your counselor and apply what you discover to the chart you created for requirement 2b.

7. Take part in an emergency service project, either a real one or a practice drill, with a Scouting unit or a community agency.

8. Do the following:

a. Prepare a written plan for mobilizing your troop when needed to do emergency service. If there is already a plan, explain it. Tell your part in making it work.

b. Take part in at least one troop mobilization. Before the exercise, describe your part to your counselor. Afterward, conduct an "after-action" lesson, discussing what you learned during the exercise that required changes or adjustments to the plan.

c. Prepare a personal emergency service pack for a mobilization call. Prepare a family kit (suitcase or waterproof box) for use by your family in case an emergency evacuation is needed. Explain the needs and uses of the contents.

9. Do ONE of the following:

a. Using a safety checklist approved by your counselor, inspect your home for potential hazards. Explain the hazards you find and how they can be corrected.

b. Review or develop a plan of escape for your family in case of fire in your home.

c. Develop an accident prevention program for five family activities outside the home (such as taking a picnic or seeing a movie) that includes an analysis of possible hazards, a proposed plan to correct those hazards, and the reasons for the corrections you propose.

Source: 2007 Boy Scout Requirements (33215)

Notes

Emergency Preparedness merit badge is on the Eagle Scout required list (requirement 3.g.). It is one choice of a group of two merit badges on the list.